“Stories about people falling in love will never go out of fashion,” Marcus countered. “War or no war, people still love to love. Look at how well Anchors Aweigh and Meet Me in St. Louis did. Both those pictures made back three times their budget.”
“Maybe that’s the difference: You’re still looking to the past, and I’m looking to the future. I tell you, it’s hard to fall in love in a world where we drop bombs that can kill hundreds and thousands in a matter of minutes. Guys like you fail to recognize the world has changed.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean? Guys like me?”
“I’m talking about ones who stayed behind, safe in their offices while real men risked life and”—he reached down and struck his knuckles against his wooden leg— “limb.”
Marcus was about to launch into a lecture about how after the navy knocked him back he helped write the speeches that helped sell millions of dollars of war bonds. But a word of advice from Jim Taggert, his outgoing predecessor, came back to him: Never excuse, never explain. “Are you aware of how close you are to being fired?”
“Are you aware of how little I care, if this is the sort of dreck you’re going to waste my talents on?”
Dierdre buzzed Marcus’ intercom to say that a Mr. Gessler was on the line. Gessler was the code name Marcus and Oliver had agreed on—after the villain in William Tell, the movie that brought them together—if Oliver needed to call him at work. It didn’t happen often, but they felt they couldn’t be too careful.
Marcus wanted to toss Purvis out on his behind and jump on the line to Oliver. But Purvis might well have a point. Suddenly he longed for the good old days when all he had to do was show up and write movies, and then go home to Oliver’s chicken pot pie. He told Dierdre he’d call Gessler back.
Marcus sat down and glared at Purvis with what he hoped was an intimidating scowl, but the guy’s glacial blue eyes stared back at him as though to say, Now what?
“This studio,” Marcus said, “needs versatile writers capable of pulling together a top-notch screenplay from whatever material I throw at them. However, I recognize that some writers excel at particular genres and it’s to the studio’s advantage that we utilize each employee’s talents.”
Purvis lifted his hands to the skies like a tent-revival preacher. “That’s all I’m saying.”
“I don’t have any war movies on the boil right now, and I can’t have you sitting around tiddly-winking your day away, so—”
“I’ve got one.”
Of course you do.
Purvis leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Okay so there’s this navy pilot—Jimmy Stewart would be ideal—and he’s downed in the Pacific. He’s alive, but pretty banged up and thinks he doesn’t have much time left. His microphone is still working and the guy on the other end is his best buddy on the battleship heading for him. So that Jimmy doesn’t lose hope, the best buddy—Peter Lawford or Van Johnson, maybe—gets Jimmy to talk of his love for his girlfriend. The buddy links Jimmy’s speech across the whole navy network and everybody listens in to his big ‘This is what we’re fighting for’ speech. Civilian radio picks up the story so that by the time he’s rescued, he’s this big war hero.”
“Skip to the part when trouble sets in.”
“His girlfriend—I’d cast Gloria DeHaven—has up and married some other guy. So the military brass finds this lookalike actress to play the girlfriend, but that bugs the bejesus out of the girl’s new husband—Jack Carson, if we can get him.”
“Is there a twist?” Marcus asked.
Purvis’ face lit up. “The hero agrees with the husband that all this playacting makes a mockery of the sacrifices the boys are making out there, fighting for truth, justice, and the American way.”
“Please tell me it’s got a happy ending.”
“A boffo happy ending that’ll leave the women crying and the guys cheering.”
“You got a title for this masterpiece?”
“Pacific Broadcast, but I’m not married to it.”
“That’s a great title,” Marcus admitted. “I can see the poster already.”
“So . . .?”
“I need a detailed outline by the end of the week.”
Purvis jumped to his feet and shook Marcus’ hand.
Outside his window, the tops of the oak trees bent and snapped. It was the first of the Santa Ana winds blowing in from the desert. Angelenos liked to believe the hot, dry Santa Anas brought restlessness and dissatisfaction, shorter fuses and wilder tempers. It was said that the murder rate in LA went up when the Santa Anas were blowing dust along the boulevards.
His intercom buzzed. “Gessler again?” Marcus asked Dierdre.
“No, Arlene from Legal.”
Marcus picked up his phone. “Lemme guess—in the end, Mathias Addison gets snuffed out by a posse of gun-happy G-men?”
“My friend just called. Are you sitting down?”
“Do I need to be?”
“Mathias Addison is toppled in disgrace by his protégé, an ex-navy man awarded the Medal of Honor for his service during the war.”
Marcus felt his body go limp. “If the protégé’s name is something like Andrew Purdue, I’m going to punch a hole in my wall.”
“He’s only ever referred to by his nickname—Amp.”
“What kind of name is that?”
A gust of Santa Ana whipped the branches outside Marcus’ office, scraping them against the glass.
“It’s short for ‘Amputee.’”
CHAPTER 30
The ambulance came to a halt at the curb in front of the Garden of Allah’s ten-foot sign on Sunset Boulevard. The driver with the Randolph Scott eyes looked into his rearview mirror. “This is where you said, right?”
“Thank you, gentlemen.” Gwendolyn tried not to slur as she gathered up her red and gold gypsy shawl, taking care none of its foot-long tassels caught on the equipment. “Are you sure giving us a lift wasn’t against the rules?”
Kathryn opened the back door with a grunt. “Of course it’s against the rules! But mum’s the word, fellas.” She pressed a finger to her lips—or at least tried, but missed by half an inch.
Gwendolyn nudged her drunken friend out of the vehicle. “If it hadn’t been for you,” she told the driver and his partner, “we might still be waiting outside Paramount.”
As the ambulance sped off, she found Kathryn sitting astride the low brick fence that ran around the Garden’s perimeter.
Gwendolyn sat next to her and brushed away a dried leaf that was caught in the elaborate lace of the dancing-girl outfit Gwendolyn had put together for the evening. In fact, it was an abandoned ensemble she’d made for one of her Midnight Frolics clients whose instruction had been “Make me look like Salomé!” She knew that his beer belly would do him no favors once he donned the seven-layered skirt. Even camouflaging his pudgy middle with the shawl that was now around Gwendolyn’s shoulders couldn’t disguise the fact his fantasy outfit should have lived only in his imagination. But when he saw himself in the mirror, he paid Gwendolyn and promptly ordered a full-length gown encrusted with as many diamantes as it took to “Make me look like Mae West!”
Kathryn laid her head on Gwendolyn’s shoulder and let out a terrific belch. “Well, that was certainly a night to remember.”
For weeks now, Paramount’s PR department had been convulsing over how their remake of The Sheik would be the top picture of 1947. As if to prove their boasts, they invited half the Hollywood press corps to the wrap party.
The studio had secured one hundred Persian rugs from a dealer who claimed his family had woven carpets for a thousand years. Whether or not this was true, the set was an impressive tent palace with half a dozen rooms divided by dazzling fifteen-foot-high rugs in crimson, azure, and vermillion that photographed gloriously in Technicolor. Against this background, Trevor Bergin as Sheik Ahmed carried off Yvonne de Carlo’s feisty British socialite Lady Diana to have his wicked way with her—or at least as wicked as the Breen Office would
permit.
Even the fake desert was impressive, with two tons of Santa Monica sand and papier mâché palm trees so realistic that everyone joked that Paramount should sell them to the Cocoanut Grove to replace the trees they’d procured from the Valentino version.
The night of the wrap party, an unending supply of liquor flowed alongside a bounty of unpronounceable Arabian delicacies. The party carried on past two o’clock, by which time no one was in any condition to drive home. The taxis were gone by the time Gwendolyn and Kathryn reached the front of the line. That’s when the ambulance driver took pity on them. He’d been called to treat an especially exuberant partygoer who had decided to scale one of the palm trees only to drop on his head.
The November night blew through Gwendolyn’s shawl. She nudged Kathryn awake. “Come on, my champagne queen, ’tis time you headed to bed.”
Kathryn lifted her face. “I’d forgotten what real French champagne from real France tasted like.”
Gwendolyn pulled Kathryn to her feet and lead her around the Garden’s main building. “Do you have any BC Headache Powder? You’re going to need it come morning.”
Kathryn had been hitting the sauce a little heavily lately. Not that Gwendolyn blamed her. The poor thing thought she was going to Reno to get a divorce and have a nice break, but ended up with J. Edgar Hoover shoving a tax bill in her face. Gwendolyn had an inkling something else happened in Reno, but Kathryn clearly wasn’t ready to talk about it.
The gravel path was sparsely lit, and Gwendolyn was taking care not to slip. She managed to negotiate the pool patio, but on the approach to Kathryn’s villa, she spotted a figure kneeling in one of the flowerbeds. It was hard to make out in the meager light of the new moon, but it looked like someone was hunched over and . . . digging?
She squeezed Kathryn’s shoulders tighter and shook her.
“Wha . . .?”
“Someone is gardening,” Gwendolyn whispered.
“This is a garden.”
“At two in the morning?” She shook Kathryn again. “I need you sober!”
Kathryn drew in a deep breath and straightened up. “What’s going on?”
Gwendolyn’s eyes had adjusted enough to make out a woman in a cotton nightgown tilling the soil in the old victory garden. The girl stopped for a moment to brush a wily lock of hair away from her face.
“It’s Bertie!” They walked up to the edge of the plot. “Sweetie? What are you doing?”
Bertie ignored them as she plowed the dirt with her right hand, then patted it down with her left. “Buried and safe.”
“Bertie?” Gwendolyn repeated, this time more loudly.
“Is she sleepwalking?” Kathryn whispered.
Gwendolyn slipped off her Arabian sandals and stepped onto the cool, damp earth. It stuck to the soles of her feet as she crouched down. “Bertie honey, wake up!”
Bertie’s head jerked back and she took in a jagged gasp. Her eyes were open now, darting wildly. “What the hell—?” she panted. “I’m outside! Why am I—Gwendolyn! Kathryn!” She looked down at her dirty hands. “Oh, Christ! Not again!”
Gwendolyn went to lay a comforting hand on her arm, but Bertie brushed it off. “I thought I was done with all that business.”
“Bertie?” Kathryn said gently. “What’s going on?”
“I CAN’T!” Bertie staggered to her feet and started backing away. “I JUST CAN’T! In the morning—I’ll—I can explain—not now—please—the morning.”
Gwendolyn and Kathryn watched her retreat into the shadows of the main building.
“What do you make of that?” Kathryn asked.
“She was burying something.” Gwendolyn peered down at the ground. “Do you still have your shovel from the victory garden days?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I still have that big flashlight. Meet you back here in five.”
* * *
When Gwendolyn returned to the victory garden, flashlight in hand, she found Kathryn in a pair of dungarees and a work shirt. She arrived just as Kathryn’s shovel struck something in the dirt with a dull clang.
“Shine it here.” Kathryn started digging faster. “I’ll be damned!” She pulled on something with a grimace until it gave way, then brushed off the dirt and positioned it in the beam of Gwendolyn’s flashlight.
“It’s Marcus’ platter.” Gwendolyn fell to her knees and started to excavate the damp earth with her hands. “All this time it’s been Bertie?”
Kathryn pulled free a silk scarf Alla Nazimova had given her. “Oh, look at this.” She poked a finger through the rotted material and it gave way in shreds. “Damn it! That was a favorite.” She tossed it aside.
They kept digging until Gwendolyn touched something small, sharp, and hard. She burrowed around it until she could pull it free and hold it to the light. It was a square gold cufflink with rows of tiny diamond chips set along the top. “This must be Trevor’s.”
They kept clawing at the earth. The smell of freshly turned dirt reminded Gwendolyn of the happy days she’d spent planting and harvesting the victory vegetables. They were rare and precious bright spots in the otherwise gloomy days of the war when she didn’t know if she’d ever see Monty again.
“Look!” Kathryn pulled a wad of material out of the ground and held it in the light.
It took Gwendolyn a moment to register why the pastel yellow and orange stripes looked familiar, then gave out a yelp. “It’s my pillowcase! My money!”
She pulled it out of Kathryn’s hand, but it tore along the seam. She groped around inside for bills, and pulled a handful into the light. Her heart dropped. Her black-market money was in tatters.
“Oh, darling,” Kathryn said softly. She reached over and placed a hand on Gwendolyn’s wrist at exactly the same moment Gwendolyn let a handful of mulched bills fall into her lap like confetti.
“So that’s the end of that.”
“Is it?” Kathryn asked. “Sleepwalking or not, Bertie took your money and buried it where the bugs could eat it. That makes her responsible, if you ask me.”
“But it just doesn’t seem right.”
“Do you know how much her allowance is from dear ol’ dad, the canned beer king?” Kathryn started brushing dirt from Trevor’s cufflink. “We should go see her. She looked real upset.”
Gwendolyn shook her head. “Let’s give her the night to calm down. I’ll slip a note under her door inviting her to breakfast at Schwab’s tomorrow morning.”
* * *
Schwab’s was its typical hive of activity—unemployed actors chatting with barely employed writers schmoozing with studio-employed musicians looked after by overemployed waitresses. The place rang with the clanking of empty dishes, the fizz of the soda fountain, and the whir of the cash register bell. Finding an available table was a hit-and-miss affair—all the regulars had eaten standing up at one time or another—but that was part of the place’s charm.
One of the waitresses waved at Kathryn, Gwendolyn, and Bertie. “If you want a booth, you better grab it while you can.” She pointed to the only vacant one left in the place. Sitting next to the soda fountain, it was the noisiest booth in the place, but they were lucky to get it.
After they ordered coffee and toast, Gwendolyn said, “So, last night . . .?”
Bertie had been uncharacteristically taciturn on the walk over from the Garden. She raked her fingers through her hair. It was such an unmanageable tangle of corkscrew curls that she’d dubbed it her Wild Man of Borneo. “I was thirteen when the stock market crashed and Dad lost everything. I started to sleepwalk. I’d take vases and wooden spoons and sweaters, and bury them in our backyard.”
“Did your parents know?”
“Sure, but they didn’t want to tell me. So every morning after I left for school, mom would send the chauffeur out and dig it all up again. It went on for nearly a whole year until one night I was out digging under the plum tree when the Great Dane next door barked so loudly he woke me up.” She cast her gaze down at h
er hands. “I had a minuscule breakdown over the whole thing. Oh yes, it was high drama in the Kreuger household there for a while, but I got over it eventually and life went back to normal. Or so I thought, until last night. I’m so sorry you had to see that.”
“It must have come as such a shock, huh,” Gwendolyn said.
Bertie pulled at her hair. “I nearly died! When I got back to my room, I thought Thank God it was Gwennie and Kathryn. Imagine if it’ll been Melody!”
“But Bertie honey, when all those things started disappearing, didn’t it occur to you that maybe history was repeating itself?”
“Of course it did!” Bertie exploded, then calmed herself. “Actually no, not at first. I guess I didn’t want to believe it. But after a while, I started to worry. So every now and then, I snuck out in the middle of the night and started digging around. But like a dope I just checked the flowerbeds near my place. It never occurred to me I’d bury all that stuff way over in the victory garden.”
She started to tear her napkin into shreds. Just like my money, Gwendolyn reflected.
“Never mind,” Kathryn said placatingly, “what’s done is done. But I’m curious to know why you’re doing it again?” Kathryn asked. “Something must have set you off again.”
Bertie nodded slowly until their waitress refilled their coffee cups. “It’s my dad.”
“He’s not sick, is he?”
“No, nothing like that.”
She dropped her shoulders with an exaggerated sigh. “Kreuger canned beer did great during the war with all those thirsty servicemen looking to get all liquored up. But now he’s got a whole bunch of competitors and it’s been sending him slowly broke. Anyway, the long and the short of it is, Dad’s cutting my allowance.”
“To what?” Kathryn asked.
“From a thousand a month to zilch.”
Gwendolyn looked at Bertie’s long face and started to smile. Couldn’t you have let us find you digging around in the dirt a couple of months ago?
Bertie wadded up her paper napkin and threw it onto the table. “I’m glad you think it’s funny.”
Reds in the Beds Page 20
